After some major frustration in waiting DAYS for my RDD wallet to sync, I decided that I don’t want others to suffer through the pains I have, so I created a bootstrap.dat that will sync up to block 758900. For the time being it’s being shared as a .torrent, since I don’t have any services that allow for large files to be uploaded.

I have been through the frustration of 7-8 days of waiting…and even with the bootstrap it took long enough not even close to smart enough to check a torrent file for issues let alone a bootstrap file…PARANOIA? yep…

The idea has merit, and i know Litecoin serves up its bootstrap via torrent. I am sure others do also
The challenge is validating the source who generated and signing it.
I have faced the challenge of sync’ing a number of times, and the last boot strap is several months old so i appreciate the effort.

@Gnasher I think what is needed is someone to check the files,validate them and sign them and put them on Git Hub as OFFICIAL. If we can’t do that…then we have a problem.
Letting everyone compile their own personal bootstrap files might be a good HOW to…
OFFICIAL BOOTSTRAP every 90 days would be a great thing…but its an important thing how and who we get things from. Malicious/ Buggy files could do a lot of damage and cost people confidence…we have an official bootstrap made by some one if this file is good it needs to be put up on the Wiki and Kudos to the maker. Some things cant be left to chance…this is one of them,

@Redshift In a nutshell, totally agree with you.
We do need more upto date and regular bootstrap available, with a better way of managing it. The chain is only growing in size so whatever can be done to make it easier for the community should be investigated

@Gnasher How do we do that? Make sure this torrent and Bootstrap are safe and then place it on the wiki? How do I make sure the DAT is Valid and correct and then digitally sign it with a valid hash and have it accepted . I don’t have DEV underneath my name…I am asking for a path to walk… Check the DAT with? Hash Signature…and Link to either the WIKI or Github or Both…ANYONE else who knows what we need to do…how to do it…to ensure its safe for everyone…feel free to step up and tell me…if I or anyone can check this and how to do it?

Seems to me that bootstrap validation could be a new form of mining i.e. nodes with the full chain can check bootstrap files, sign it to indicate validation, and perhaps get a payment in reward ? The validation mechanism should be decentralized and voted/signed multiple times with a consensus threshold of validations perhaps set at 10. Sounds like a new ecosystem development project to me, but one that could equally be applied to other coins. So one could conceive of sites people go to for bootstraps - either the actual file or a torrent. Making it secure and un-tamperable will be key. So thinking aloud, the goal should be to have a daily/weekly automated bootstrap generation with fully decentralized secure validation. Of course it could be centralized to get the concept going, but then offer validation apps that full node operators can run. Does anyone know if any other coins offer this capability ?

I can do that, i have fast fiber and i’m already running a full node, so it should not be a problem for me to do so, say, every two weeks.

Or at the very least update it once; a raspi can take two weeks to sync from scratch easily, and that’s not a joke anymore - moreover as things stand (or don’t stand, whichever way you preffer it).

On the other hand, the bootstrap should be merged with the installer imho and at one point being given the choice to download it during install, but that’s far beyond my skills and although i’ve been around pretty much since the beginning i’m not in any way part of the dev team (although i was the “official” spanish translator - should we had not come to a sudden halt).

@Laudney said it, HD wallets are a game changer (his own words), but since they’re not being actively developed anymore - to the best of my knowledge - we are at a serious disadvantage using traditional QT wallets.

By next year next to nobody will want to sync, not even with an octocore beast sporting the fastest consumer SSD on the market.

IMHO the ecosystem should support both the QT and HD wallets equally.
HD wallets make it very easy for the average user (and even the power user) to hold their coins on a daily basis.
I think of HD wallets like my pocket… I have a few coins sitting there for when needed (spending)
It doesnt make any extra while it sits there. That is, they dont stake, but they are also low maintenance, and can be backed up very easily.

For the QT wallet, i treat this like my bank. It is where i hold my savings, and only withdraw when needed, and top it up when i have spare.
But like a bank, they take a bit more maintenance to look after and you need to be prepared to look after them.

I wrote elsewhere that currently you need a few million RDD to stake regularly (once a day, or more). This is equivalent to about $75USD.
It is not a huge amount, but not everyone has that much or wants to input that much which is fine.
Anyone running a QT wallet will be supporting the network, while staking. But to get the benefit of staking you need to have it loaded.

If i recall, the reason not to continue development of the electrum wallet,was because they are not able stake.
For the reasons outlined above, i dont see this as an issue.in the long term for users, as long as we have enough full QT nodes staking.

The sync time is getting longer, and I see that we do need a viable solution for anyone who does want to run a full node.

Let me have a think about how to best approach maintaining the bootstrap. and share my thoughts.
(Will need to be a bit later i am afraid as i still have RL work to continue)

@henry DUDE!! I like your thinking…Amazon Web Server running a bootstrap node…I love the idea…if we can make it cover its own costs… and a bit more great…so who’s going to be game to do this lol. I am utterly cluesless.

In a fit of enthusiasm I just registered coinstrap.info. I suspect that’s the easiest part of this project. I won’t deny that I accumulate domains for ideas that have never seen the light of day. Let’s start with Reddcoin, but the principle should be easy to extend to other coin full node daemons / QT wallets with time. I guess a white paper or an outline is the next stage.

One of the devs (maybe @tralf) stated that there is no security advantage in using the QT wallet over the Browser wallet, and the Browser wallet has the ‘Social Funds’ and ‘Savings’ addresses so it should be able to take care of daily tipping as well as long-term savings

Last I heard the Browser wallet and the mobile wallets were going to use Electrum (unless I missed something???)